After the previous posting on the Bayesian approach to clinical trial data, several new comments made it clear to me that more needed to be said. This posting addresses those comments and adds a few more observations regarding the unfortunate consequences of EBM’s neglect of prior probability as it applies to “complementary and alternative medicine” (“CAM”).†

The “Galileo gambit” and the statistics gambit

Reader durvit wrote:

A very interesting example, for a number of people, might be estimating the prior probability for Marshall and Warren’s early work on Helicobacter pylori and its impact on gastroduodenal management. I frequently have Marshall quoted to me as a variation on the Galileo gambit, so establishing whether he and Warren would have been helped or hindered by Bayesian techniques would be useful.

This suggestion raises a couple of issues. First, the “Galileo gambit” regarding Marshall and Warren’s discovery is a straw man (as durvit seems to have surmised). (more…)